Report: Social Networking Accounts for 19% Of Time Spent Online & Social Ads The U.S. Leader In Display

A recent social networking comScore report broke down global and U.S. trends in Social Media.  This annual report solidified the hold that social networking has on global web activity and uncovered some surprising global trends.  Here are some highlights from the data:

Social Networking: The Most Popular Online Activity

Reaching 82% of the world’s online population, social networking has become the predominant activity on the web.  The time users have spend engaging with social networks has tripled over the last few years.

Social networking now accounts for 19% of all time spend online, a major difference from a mere 6% back in March of 2007.

Some global disparities do exist in the space.  As we saw earlier this week, Israel is tops among social networking usage followed by Argentina, Russia, Turkey and Chile:

The countries that spent the least amount of time social networking were Asian-Pacific countries.  These countries spent nearly half the time networking than the rest of the world.

Facebook: The Champion of Social Networking

ComScore confirms that Facebook is the third largest web property in the world (trailing Google & Microsoft sites) reaching 55% of the world’s population.   Not only does Facebook have the reach, they also are the champions of interaction.  3 out of every 4 minutes spent social networking are spent on Facebook.  Facebook is the leading social site in 30 of the 43 countries in the report.  The 7 major markets where Facebook is not the leader are Brazil, China, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam.

Social Networking Ads: Leader In Impressions, But Not Dollars

With the amount of time spent on social networks, it’s not surprising social is the leading category in display ad impressions, making up more than 1 in 4 U.S. display ads this October.  What is surprising is the fact that while the category leader, social networking only makes up 15% of display revenue.  An interesting fact is that 5% of all U.S. based display ads were “socially-enabled” as users could click through and connect with social networks.

Of course Facebook is the largest social publisher in the display market, and is also the largest impression provider in the United States.  In the third quarter alone, Facebook delivered 28% of all ad impressions.  With the new Facebook ad types in the works, look for even more dominance from Facebook Ads in the coming year.

For more information see the full comScore report.

About The Author

Greg Finn

Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides world-class social media and search marketing services and web & application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 10+ years and specializes in Digital Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.